Home on a very small range

In the years that I zealously
rode a horse as a teen, the pasture below our house was a pen for
my plump little buckskin mare. Conveniently flat, it doubled as an
arena, hard-packed and strewn with makeshift jumps.

Other
than being a nuisance and forcing me to feed hay more often, the
thistle and burdock that crept across more and more ground each
year were part of the background. I didn’t think much about
the connections between me, my horse, and the condition of that
well-used patch of ground.

By the time I left home,
I’d acquired a taller and slimmer sorrel gelding. I tried
stabling him near college or work a couple of times, but the
combination of expense and inconvenience was always too much.
Spoiled by the habit of proximity, I decided I wouldn’t get a
horse again until — and unless — I ended up in a place
where I could pasture it at home.

About 20 years passed,
and life went on: college, jobs, travel, marriage, home ownership.
My husband and I lived for a time in the foothills outside of
Boulder, Colo. The land was rocky, steep and heavily wooded,
without much in the way of grass. We could have put up a corral and
sustained a horse on hay, but I had acquired a different
perspective by then. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice a patch of
land to the hoof-packed desolation that would inevitably result
from my desires. I’d begun to figure the costs as something
more than the price of feed.

When we decided to leave
Boulder, finding a place that would be appropriate for horses was a
major consideration. We found land on an interlude of grassy
volcanic hills in central Colorado. Eight years passed between
buying the place and setting up for horses, but the moment arrived
last summer. I’d been looking forward to being able to ride
from home again, but I’d also grown fond of running my eyes
over the landscape’s flow. In spite of the promise of on-site
equines, seeing the imposition of the new fence stretching across
the grass has been rather more bitter than sweet.

Still,
the prospect of having horses is part of what brought us here, so
next spring we’ll fence in a second, larger pasture, one big
enough to feed a couple of horses without getting pounded into a
weed-choked hardpan. The fence we’ve designed should secure
the desired occupants while posing a less treacherous barrier to
deer and elk than the standard-issue barbed wire.

Ten
years ago, this land was part of a huge ranch that sprawled across
thousands of acres. I suppose that in that context, my ruminations
on two horses grazing 40 acres seem like conceits, just the sort of
overblown self-importance that might make an old-timer snort with
scorn.

Yet, the irony of land-use patterns in the West
today is that the decisions made about smaller and smaller pieces
of land will have greater and greater repercussions. Like so many
of the issues that affect the environment, the impacts of any one
individual seem inconsequential, but the cumulative effects can be
devastating.

As thousands of 35-acre (and smaller) lots
are carved into ranchettes from what had been open range, the
pressures exerted on small areas are compounded many times over.
These pressures are all the more intense, given that such land is
typically marketed as a retreat from life’s burdens. The last
thing most new owners want to hear is that they need to cut weeds
or manage their animals’ grazing or adjust their dreams of
rural living to accommodate wildlife.

The West is
burdened by the wishes and desires of a growing population, though,
and it’s clear that the time has come to expect more of small
landowners. As a member of this group, I’m trying to develop
a sense of what my obligations toward this land are.

Pulling weeds, regarding pastures as more than pens and trying out
options for wildlife-compatible fencing are tiny steps, I’ll
grant. Yet just as the impacts of our individual lives are
incremental, so, too, are the opportunities for restraint and
thoughtful choice. If there’s any good news to be found in
sprawl, it’s that more people have an opportunity to forge
connections with the land. Large-scale conservation and restoration
projects are a vital part of the modern stewardship repertoire, but
small, individually motivated efforts have their place as well.

Up on this windy ridge, I’m taking it one horse,
one fence line, one pasture at a time.

Andrea
Jones is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of
High Country News (hcn.org). She lives and
writes near Guffey, Colorado.